Big images versus several small ones … what attracts the most attention and does the most to sell your product or service?

An Evansville massage therapy business goes with large, close up images for maximum impact

I’m a photographer, so I like to see large images. But I’m not alone.

If you look at ads from major corporations or their websites, you’ll find that for the most part, images are as large as they can be. There’s a reason for this.

To begin with, these corporations have the budget to hire people to produce their marketing who know what they’re doing.

You see, the purpose of a photograph in an ad or website is to draw attention and get the person to investigate further. Whether it’s people or products, a large, clear image says more, and sells more than several small ones.

The difficulty lies when a client asks the question, how can I show all of my services in a single photo?

The answer is, you can’t. But that’s not what people look at a photo for. The best images for advertising don’t show everything. The best images are those which attract curiosity, or touch an emotion. If you’re a local mechanic, a car or real estate salesman, unless the person is looking for a specific car or house, an interesting photo of yourself is more effective than several smaller images of products.

Large photos consistently attract more attention than small photos. That said, on mobile devices the size of both even out. On a phone, both of these images will turn out to be about the same size, nearly the full width of the screen.

People can read a half dozen bullets points quicker and easier than they can scan a half dozen images and try to glean the same information from those. True, if you have listings – used cars, real estate, etc., then small photos are a necessity.

That said, with a website there’s something to consider. Most of the websites I work with now have half or more of their traffic accessing the sites with a phone or other mobile device. Those large images at the top of your page on these devices are now the same size as the smaller images in the listings.

To remain effective, larger images have to be clutter free, and the subjects large enough that you can see what’s going on, whether the photo is large or small.

Photos and illustrations can be just as important to the success of your marketing as the headline, or any other element. More than anything else, a large image at the top can do more to attract attention, and set the tone for what you’re about to say than anything else. An image contains information, emotion and when done right, beauty.

A bunch of small images really just adds clutter to what you’re doing. It breaks the flow of your marketing materials, a reader has no idea where to start or where to go next. If a picture paints a thousand words, one large images out performs a few smaller ones, nearly every time.